What Does a Leader Do? Part II: Letting Go and Grabbing Hold

Pete continues his exploration of the leader's focus in part II of this series, by tapping into one of the most difficult aspects of blending your focus - letting go.

However, through this episode, we learn that letting go is only half of the problem, watch and listen to learn the other half.

Transcript

Pete Behrens:
What does a leader DO? Welcome to another episode of (Re)Learning Leadership, where we explore a specific leadership challenge and break it down to help improve your leadership, your organization, and just possibly, your personal life!

I’m Pete Behrens, and today we explore Part II of what a leader does, or more importantly, what they should do. In Part I, we explored how awareness and intent were Job One of the leader. In this, Part II, we’re going to explore how to reblend a new focus.

Let’s dive in!

Alright. Many years ago, I was going on a trip, two weeks, away to India. And I had it all packed up. I got out of the garage; I was loading the car, you know, with the bags. And my 3-ish-year-old son grabbed—like a bear hug—on my leg and cried, “Dad, don’t leave me!” Man, was that an emotional goodbye, just thinking about it now.

You know, it’s natural—right?—human nature for us to hold onto those things we cherish—you know, family, friends, even possessions or, you know, our job. And to a certain degree, our expertise, right? That’s our identity. Now, in Part I, I explored a bit of how, as a new leader, I wasn’t even aware to let go in order to grow somebody else. But what’s interesting is—as I’ve developed my leadership capacity, from tech lead to manager to director to vice president to even a coach for organizations, I know better that I NEED to let go of DOING, but yet I still find it to be an incredible challenge.

Every time I’m moved from a role, or shifted from a role where I’m one step removed from my previous role, I feel that previous role draw me back, right? Why is this? That previous role is kind of like my son grabbing onto me. He’s afraid of what’s coming, right? He knows the rhythm of the work and home-balance that he has, and he’s cherishing that. And just like that, I think we, as we shift into a new job or a new role, the comfort and safety and, you know, what that old job was like—that’s an easy place to be. Charting a new landscape and a new role? That’s tough.

Our work identity becomes intertwined with our expertise, right? Our value becomes inseparable from what we have become an expert in. And if we think about what it means to let go of that, in essence, it’s kind of like giving up a piece of ourselves. And so, that’s a difficult ask.

I realized over time, as I’ve been coaching other leaders, that I am not the only one who struggles with letting go. Every leader at every level faces this challenge. We had one of the leaders on our podcast two years ago, Jon Christensen—and the podcast was called Learning to Let Go. And he described his challenge with how he had to kind of struggle with this letting go process. But he said something that stuck with me. He said when he let go and failed to grab onto something else, he would find himself drawn back to what he let go of. He became too involved, too invested, too hovering, to some degree, and ended up micromanaging. He said the key for him was grabbing onto something different. Something that would give him focus. Something that would almost distract him or, you know, fight that urge to get drawn back into our comfort zone.

So, learning from that—letting go is only half the battle, right? The other half of the battle is—what do we grab onto?

I recall a time when we were doing a program for one of our clients. We were developing a new training program. And I felt like I really had a successful blend, right? I stayed involved as a subject-matter expert. We were leading—I was helping lead and facilitate the development and coaching others to really take some ownership of this. All that was working great. And then something interesting happened. Towards the time we were ready to deliver the very first delivery to leaders, in a classroom, they sat me down, and they said, “Pete, you are not allowed to be in the classroom.”

I was like, “What? What are you talking about! Like, this is my baby, right? You’re asking me, like, not to be at my product launch! How can I do that?” [Laughs] I had to take a deep breath. You know, I had been working so hard on this, and it was like—how am I going to coach? How am I going to lead? How am I going to get feedback? How do I see whether this works or doesn’t work? And the—like, “Pete, all that’s true. All that is true. But if you are in the room, we can’t be who we need to be to lead and facilitate this class. We’re going to be under the expectation of your teaching style and under the expectation of your expertise, and we’re not going to be able to be ourselves.”

That was hard to hear. But at the same time, I was so—I recognized the courage it took to push back on me in that moment, right? And what they needed to do their job. And it was a forcing factor for me, to say, “Okay, Pete. Even you being there is going to be a problem.” Right? “You need to focus. You need to be distracted by something else.” And so then the question becomes, what’s that other thing, right?

This is where our shift and our moving away, our letting go and grabbing on—it doesn’t mean we grab onto leadership or grab onto coaching. Maybe it means grabbing onto DOING something else. And for me, that was definitely something I had to shift my focus towards—a total other program—to give them that space, and then come in with LEADERSHIP and COACHING later.

So my ask for you: I want you to think about one thing, right? One thing you’re holding onto. One thing that keeps you in your comfort zone. One thing that, if you let go, would make you, potentially, a better leader. And I want you to write that on a sticky note, right? Write “I will let go of…”, and I want you to fill in that blank.

Now, one other thing I want you to do is identify one thing that will stretch you. One thing that takes you out of your comfort zone. One thing that if you grabbed onto, you could become a better leader. And I want you to write that on another sticky note: “I will grab onto…”, and fill in the blank.

So, remember: letting go is only half of the problem. What you grab onto is the other half.

Best of luck in your letting go and grabbing on, and thank you for joining us today. Enjoy the journey.

(Re)Learning Leadership is the official podcast of the Agile Leadership Journey. Together we build better leaders. It’s hosted by me, Pete Behrens, with contributions from our global Guide community. It’s produced by Ryan Dugan. With music by Joy Zimmerman. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave us a review, or share a comment. And visit our website, agileleadershipjourney.com/podcast, for guest profiles, episode references, transcripts, and to explore more about your own leadership journey.